What is it about this game?

[Cyc]

Don't be so mean, Cyc. Nothing that comes from that guy should be taken too seriously, but chances are that a vast number of bystanders has already figured it out by now, so it's mostly harmless

I wasn't being mean to Buttercup. But I guess you saw it that way, so my bad. I was just chiding him for not doing his research. Guess I should have searched for an appropriate smilie.

Just kidding, Buttercup!

 

[Buttercup]

Lol

 

[Quintillus]

Civilisation III is indeed widely regarded as the weakest member of the Civilisation franchise. This is evident from a vast array of on-line sources from Gamespot user reviews to democratic top 100s.

There are many reasons for this.

Civilisation I - It was spearheaded by Sid Meier. It's the original. Nuff said.

Civilisation II - A micromanagementist's dream. Added acres of additions to Civ I without taking barely anything away.

Civilisation IV - Provided 21st Century graphics and was the game the designer of Civ III was aiming for when he 'experimented' with Civ III.

Civilisation V - Vying with Civ III for position at the bottom of the heap. Too many removed mechanics and radical changes to basic mechanics without adding anything particularly interesting to replace them.


Civilisation III:

The downers which keep it at the bottom of the heap, to name but a few:

Tedious Corruption levels
Tedious incurable Pollution
Tedious Technology trees of zero use/value
Tedious and ineffectual/irrational weaponry advances
Tedious No like-for-like trading
After Railroads at the mid-game point Workers become Tedious pollution moppers

Massive gaps where there appears to be nothing useful to build
Massive balancing problems between AI only abilities and Human only abilities
Massive balancing problems between old and new military Units
The game has a general Civilisation-light feeling

Took away great swathes of micromanagement elements of Civilisation II and replaced them with a few big Macro concepts which don't feel like they've fully 'got right'.


Sounds awfully negative doesn't it. And it kind of is. But then would you rather watch a bad Martin Scorsese movie or a good Steven Segal movie? A bad Civilisation game will still challenge you and entertain you far more efficiently than a good shoot-em-up.

Also, Civilisation III has the best music of the series, the quickest game-time commitment and the easiest interface for new players.

...and it works on Windows 7...

Actually, I think Civ4 has the best music in the series. It's a bit more varied, I think it's a longer soundtrack, the eras are divided up a bit more. Not that I don't like some of Civ3's music, but I don't think the music has as much staying power as Civ4's.

I agree with some and disagree with others of your criticisms. Some of them I think were not really problems if you didn't have previous expectations to the contrary. Like the tech tree areas that didn't do anything - Steel, Refining, and Corporations prior to C3C, for example. I guess it didn't bother me because it still felt like you were making technological progress, and there's still the big boost to naval power if you're first to Combustion. And it even has a slight advantage in that you don't get as much instantly-obsolete syndrome as if every tech introduces something new. Similarly, the generally small amount of things to build in the Industrial Age wasn't so much a problem as a new player, as I still had bunches of things I hadn't got around to building yet. Even if you have built up, surplus shields can be a nice time for war. Workers being tedious pollution moppers... the mopping part can get annoying, but I had no reason to object to them not having more things to do otherwise.

Similarly, the balance issues aren't necessarily a big deal if you aren't playing multiplayer competitively. Yes, it blows that in Conquests the AI can't really use armies. And Marines and Paratroopers were pretty pitifully underpowered in vanilla, to the point that even in single player it kind of stood out as making them nearly pointless. But other than those glaring issues, it didn't really affect the fun. So what if a spearman beats a tank? It's pretty rare. And if the battle were in the northern Russian winter, you might be better off with spears than tanks that can't start up and no other weapons, anyway.

I don't see the Civ-light aspect of Civ3, at least compared to the later iterations, though. If Civ3 is CivLight, then Civ4 must be CivExtraLight, Civ5 CivUberLight, and CivRev CivLigtherThanAir. Maybe it is compared to Civ2... if so perhaps I need to play Civ2. But not compared to the later iterations. Though, I'm also in the camp that thinks the "21st century" graphics of Civ4 were a step down from Civ3's graphics - good isometric 2D versus fairly poor 3D.

 

[Civinator]

Though, I'm also in the camp that thinks the "21st century" graphics of Civ4 were a step down from Civ3's graphics - good isometric 2D versus fairly poor 3D.

Yes, this is an important point in my eyes.

I really don´t like how the world is presented in Civ 4 and in Civ 5. I don´t want to look to the game "like a frog". The designers of Civ 4 and Civ 5 must have had the idea to present these games in the way they did, when looking on an exploded toilet brush:

 

[TLF]

The problem with civ 5 graphics is that it's all about the terrain.

The gameplay focus is on the cities and units and improvements. but the graphics put all the emphasis on the look of the terrain.

It's just bad design.

 

[tR1cKy]

I wasn't being mean to Buttercup. But I guess you saw it that way, so my bad. I was just chiding him for not doing his research. Guess I should have searched for an appropriate smilie.

Just kidding, Buttercup!

LOL! You got me wrong, i was joking as well. I have no real desire to defend that guy.

Actually, based on the lines you quoted, i find your reply rather appropriate.

 

[Jesusfreak]

Personally, I thought Civilization IV was a complete disaster. I notice this trend with a lot of games - pretty much anything made within the past ten years is almost guaranteed to be a piece of junk (ie, Starcraft II, Civilization IV, C&C Generals), although there are exceptions (notably, the only exception I can think of off the top of my head was not part of an existing series).


I don't remember a lot of the details that were wrong with Civ IV, since it's been years since I last played it (I don't even have it installed anymore since it was such a waste of space). The big thing for me was how they completely ruined the combat mechanism by uniting attack and defense values into one "strength" stat.
Plus, religion was a complete disappointment (they were all exactly the same and hardly did anything...).
They also messed up basic gameplay mechanics like pollution and civil disorder.
The game was horribly slow, and the graphics were TERRIBLE. And from what I've seen of the newer games, their graphics are even worse. Leaders went from being relatively realistic to being cartoonish freaks.
The tech tree wasn't nearly as organized as the one in Civ III.
"Civics" was another major blow to the game. It destroyed the way governments worked. Part of the game in earlier series was having to make tradeoffs with what you want in your government - civics make it far too easy to engineer the perfect government.


Civ III, on the other hand, wasn't a disaster; I wouldn't necessarily say that it was an improvement over Civ II MGE, but it added a lot of cool features and didn't make any incredibly game-breaking mistakes. ie, I disliked how they made artillery, aircraft, and naval combat practically useless, but I liked the new system of resources and it was nice to have diplomats/spies not be incredibly overpowered (actually, spies in Civ III are near useless except to investigate cities, but it's better than being able to buy out entire nations and their armies with ease). I also liked how Civ III gave you well-defined borders. On the other hand, I think removing the event system that Civ II MGE had sort of crippled scenario-making in III.


Overall, I'd say that Civ II MGE was the best for it's time. Excellent graphics, good mapmaking ability, decent combat system, ok government mechanics (democracy was a tad overpowered, as was fundamentalism in situations where technology wasn't an issue), etc. Only thing that I can really dislike about it is it's lack of a resource system, the limit of 7 players, and it's AI being terrible and not particularly challenging even at deity level (not really its fault since it's pretty old).




Oddly, I remember reading a thread where a lot of people said that people who liked Civ II would like Civ IV, and people who liked Civ III wouldn't like either II or IV. I'm wondering where they got this idea from; it doesn't make any sense whatsoever to me.

 

[gps]

Civ III, on the other hand, wasn't a disaster; I wouldn't necessarily say that it was an improvement over Civ II MGE, ...

I really like your positive attitude!

 

[Wahsayah]

Now I started playing Civ3 and the main that has kept me alive to playing this game is the fact that for about the past two-three years, I have a mod. It's not an epic mod, but it's mine. But before I started modding I was trying out Civ4, at the time; I didn't really like the editor and I feel that Civ3 and Civ4 had imbalanced combat systems that I personally wanted to adjust with proper research and perspective. I did like some elements of Civ4, but ultimately I think from shifting Civ3 to Civ4 wasn't a great idea. Maybe I became too enveloped with the Attack/Defense gameplay that when I went into Civ4, the concept for Strength seemed linear to me when the bonuses seemed to do little for improving the unit's ability to take on the intended targets it was built to take out.

I've always been the one for Naval and Air warfare and while Civ4 had its quirks, I still come back to Civ3 just because perhaps mainly; that I feel that Civ4 wasn't as friendly to a noob modder, and maybe a bit overzealous on reminding me on everything that's going on.

Now have I noticed that Civ3 has some issues? Yeah, but I've come to love them and work around them with my mod and most of the gaps that once existed are now gone. ^^

 

[Jingo7]

Though, I'm also in the camp that thinks the "21st century" graphics of Civ4 were a step down from Civ3's graphics - good isometric 2D versus fairly poor 3D.

i second this.

 

[nyarmondt]

First, let me state that I have played Civ 1, 2 & 3, and Aplha Centauri, plus the demo of 4. The demo of 4 was not on my computer, and eventhough I liked it, I can't play it on mine as my graphics card isn't strong enough.

Second, the step towards 3D has hurt many games, though that's not an issue for the civ's I play. But for other games it is. Someone mentioned C&C generals as a bad example for the "3D gameplay devolution". In fact, the problem was not the step towards 3D, but EA. Moreover, their rushing its production. Try to play that game with the Shockwave mod (you need Zero Hour too), and you'll notice that this game is actually quite good.

Now, how I see things... Eventhough I love civ 1 & colon. to bits, those dosgraphics are rather harsh. Also, it was possible to rule the world with just 1 chariot.
The barbarians were cool as they kept comin & evolving, and could even occupy cities. I miss that a bit in III.
What do I miss more from I? The empire split when you occupy a capital. The diplomats as units (they were even good for popping huts... or a nice income-boost when you killed a hostile one) And off-course, the fact that you could improve science how you wanted, not bound by periods of mandatory research.

CivII I played later as civIII, and is in my opinion the lesser of the 3. I don't know why exactly...

Now, for the big comparison: pitting Alpha Centauri against CivIII.
Graphicwise, they're on par.
Science research is clunky with both. Smac's lack of a visual techtree does hurt it a bit. But once you get to something, then Sac shines in its true virtue- customisation.

On the other hand CivIII has tribe-specific units and ARMIES

But again, Smac takes the lead with covert-ops and diplomacy. In that game, the other factions do acknowledge your past good deeds in a way, while in CivIII the ai-players only seem to remember the bad things...even if you have not wronged them.

And the cultural-border war thingie is both a blessing & a curse in CivIII. Especially because it costs a heck of a lot of money to keep them. And that's 1 thing I always seem to lack With other TBS games, I seldom have that problem...)

CivIII, while a very good game imho, does loose from smac for a first position. But it does have a solid 2nd place

 

[Wardog]

I played II, III and IV.

To me, III was the best, the last real Civ game. After that, all the simplicity and the magic were gone.

Civ III with modern graphics would be the perfect strategy game.

 

[MPK]

I played II, III and IV.

To me, III was the best, the last real Civ game. After that, all the simplicity and the magic were gone.

Civ III with modern graphics would be the perfect strategy game.

Totally agree. Civ 3 is the best. Simplicity is a great word for a description.

Civ 3 with better graphics. Just a little better. I would rather have more options in the modding aspect- eg: more terrain etc.

 

[Moosezilla]

I just love threads like this, that remind me that, though flawed, Civ III is still the best.

 

[Inbound]

I've played 1-3, & for the first time yesterday, 4. I removed 4 from my Mac today. Civ4 is just too much, too different, too great a departure from what Civ was. The graphics are eye fatiguing and the non military unit gameplay just too much-too busy and annoying.

One of the worst aspects of Civ3 was indeed the ridiculous pollution, but at least with the editor that could be minimized. The greatest thing about Civ3 to me was the editor & it gave me thousands of hours of interesting play. Unfortunately now that I have a Mac I am dead in the water (no editor) and I haven't tried going the XP on Mac route yet. My only regret about getting a Mac.

Civ3 was nice if it was edited to go slowly enough so the majority of game was spent in the pre gunpowder era. I didn't care for it in the Modern era.

Had so many -oh crap- moments with Civ3. Massive armies appearing on the doorstep, etc.

One time I was fairly advanced in the game and had 20 or so cavalry units in my country. Can you believe that the Byzantines invaded me with hordes, and I mean HORDES of spearmen and came darn close to zapping me. Only happened once in thousands of hours of gameplay. I have no idea what unique combination of factors contributed to that AI decision.

Another time I was such a terrible tyrant (I burned everything in sight throughout the whole game) my empire started revolting to other countries...including my Forbidden Palace city. I found that interesting.

In another game I was really in a bad way for resources and had nothing more than spearmen & longbowmen and a few Crusaders. It took some thinking, but a clever ambush layout let me prevail against a strong protracted mounted invasion of knights & cavalry. Someone can correct me, but with all the nonsense going on in Civ4, I just don't see that happening.

 

[Theov]

I've played 1-3, & for the first time yesterday, 4. I removed 4 from my Mac today. Civ4 is just too much, too different, too great a departure from what Civ was. The graphics are eye fatiguing and the non military unit gameplay just too much-too busy and annoying.

One of the worst aspects of Civ3 was indeed the ridiculous pollution, but at least with the editor that could be minimized. The greatest thing about Civ3 to me was the editor & it gave me thousands of hours of interesting play. Unfortunately now that I have a Mac I am dead in the water (no editor) and I haven't tried going the XP on Mac route yet. My only regret about getting a Mac.

Civ3 was nice if it was edited to go slowly enough so the majority of game was spent in the pre gunpowder era. I didn't care for it in the Modern era.

Had so many -oh crap- moments with Civ3. Massive armies appearing on the doorstep, etc.

One time I was fairly advanced in the game and had 20 or so cavalry units in my country. Can you believe that the Byzantines invaded me with hordes, and I mean HORDES of spearmen and came darn close to zapping me. Only happened once in thousands of hours of gameplay. I have no idea what unique combination of factors contributed to that AI decision.

Another time I was such a terrible tyrant (I burned everything in sight throughout the whole game) my empire started revolting to other countries...including my Forbidden Palace city. I found that interesting.

In another game I was really in a bad way for resources and had nothing more than spearmen & longbowmen and a few Crusaders. It took some thinking, but a clever ambush layout let me prevail against a strong protracted mounted invasion of knights & cavalry. Someone can correct me, but with all the nonsense going on in Civ4, I just don't see that happening.

i played 4 a few times, but it was too much of a balancing act of picking the right governments/civics, religion, allies that I'd grow tired of it. I liked some additions, but just one wrong 'off' decision and your entire game went to shambles. I also can't stand the fact that they made religion part of a game.

Most of the time in Civ4 I grew more of a hatred than a love towards the rest of the world. I didn't 'like' the worlds. Sometimes I couldn't wait till I could bomb every single city.
With nukes.
Twice.
I once played nice all game. Until I nuked everyone into the stone age. I do miss those days.
But when I want to play like that again, I pop in a civ1 - 3, not civ4.
Colonization, now that's a game I'd try again.

Welcome to the forums by the way.

 

[vorlon_mi]

I've played 1-3, & for the first time yesterday, 4. I removed 4 from my Mac today. Civ4 is just too much, too different, too great a departure from what Civ was. The graphics are eye fatiguing and the non military unit gameplay just too much-too busy and annoying.

... snip, snip ....
In another game I was really in a bad way for resources and had nothing more than spearmen & longbowmen and a few Crusaders. It took some thinking, but a clever ambush layout let me prevail against a strong protracted mounted invasion of knights & cavalry. Someone can correct me, but with all the nonsense going on in Civ4, I just don't see that happening.

Like Theov, welcome to the CFC Forums !

I've got both installed, and will go back to try a few games in Civ4 in Sept, after I finish some in progress. Civ4 really appeals to my inner builder. One must pay even more attention to resources, to city buildings and terrain improvements, and how they all play together. Add on a strategy for Great People, and it's a lot to carry around in your head. Most of my Civ4 games were played in Vanilla, so I understood religion reasonably well -- don't even get me started about espionage in BtS, or the AP victory condition. And the impassable mountains

It's a different mindset; Civ3/C3C lets me expand like crazy, build roads like crazy, and use that empire to support a decent military. Civ4 throttles the early expansion, and requires that each city get some TLC to make it a contributing part of my empire. Build too much of anything, and your empire can get out of balance.

I agree with you; some of the clever military tactics I've seen people use (and I've tried myself) in Civ3/C3C would never work in Civ4/BtS.

 

[Theov]

*snip snip*

Build too much of anything, and your empire can get out of balance.

that's the thing... one step in the wrong direction and no more soup for you.

 

[Smellincoffee]

I prefer its graphics to those of CIV4 -- they "pop" more. When I play games of Civilization IV, I'm always forgetting about units -- losing them. CIV also seems more complicated than Civ3, and I'm not comfortable with it because I don't understand its mechanics like I do CIv3's. Then again, I suppose if I made myself play it more, I'd learn the mechanics...but I've got the rest of my life to get around to that, I suppose.

I can't speak for Civ5, not having tried it. I'm very much interested in it now with Gods and Kings, but it's too expensive for me to try without knowing how I'll like it.

 

[Bowsling]

Once you stop getting wrapped up in the aesthetics (which are awful IMHO) and ignoring what the AI leaders are actually saying to you ("Soon my numberless Warriors shall destroy you"), Civ4 is actually quite a good game. You lose a lot of the stress about wasted overflow, which actually makes the game much more enjoyable. Among other things.